Davin Cochrane saved this LH sedan from oblivion and gave it a new, high-tech lease on life.Story and Pics by hoskingindustries.com.au

“A friend had seen a Torana near his house sitting under a tree out near Baradine,” starts 43-year-old Davin Cochrane. “It had been sitting there quietly for quite some time. I made contact with the owner and got hold of a car trailer to go pick it up.”

Davin paid the princely sum of $2000 for the LH back in April 2008, hauling the hulk several hours back to his home base south of Newcastle in NSW. No doubt there was more than one session of serious cleaning before the true condition of the car was revealed.

“A number of family members looked at the car and thought it was a piece of junk, but I could see the potential,” Davin says. “Considering what we wanted the outcome of the restoration to be, we decided ‘no regrets’ was the way to go.”

Before a spanner got turned in the name of restoration, Davin hatched his plan on what he thought the LH should become in its new phase of life. “At the time we started the project, there was only a couple of Toranas running GenIIIs that we were aware of,” he says. “It also had to be a manual. So an LS1 with a 6-speed sounded like the go.”

LS1 conversions were pretty thin on the ground in 2008 and as a result, finding parts wasn’t all that simple. Davin started out with some CRS mount and cross member parts, while working with an electrician in QLD fabricating a custom wiring harness to suit the applications. However, there were more pressing matters on Davin’s radar than jamming a new drivetrain into the Torana – like the rusted body.

“We stripped the car and had it blasted first,” Davin says. “There were lots of rust holes and the roof had been caved in, as though the local kids had been using it to land on when jumping out of the tree it used to sit under.”

“The panel guy looked the car over and recommended we start with another body. Not to be put off, I persuaded them to continue with the original car, even if it ended up costing a bit more.”

Despite the hard slog the paint and panel guys faced, it wasn’t too long before Davin had the car back in his possession and he could now turn his attention solely toward the fun stuff like the engine conversion and running gear. Davin looked around and found a guy who had a 255kW VX-spec’ LS1 he had planned to put into a hatch. With only 67,000kms on the clock, Davin swooped in on the engine.

“We deleted the power steering and had to fit a sump with the pickup at the back due to the cross member,” Davin says. “We found a T56 from a wrecked Maloo with only 35,000kms on the clock, which is where we met our next problem.”

That problem was a transmission that was significantly larger than the Torana’s trans’ tunnel would accommodate. While he tried to work around the problem, Davin had no option but to face up to it and grab the angle grinder. When the gap ended up too large to simply weld shut, a friend of his came to the rescue, allowing Davin to cut out the tunnel from a Commodore he was wrecking.

Over the course of the build, Davin faced a number of other conversion issues – as you might well imagine would be the case when trying to join 21st century technology to archaic 1970s Holden hardware. Auto and Marine Instruments in Victoria converted the original factory gauges to electronic units to overcome the speedo output from the T56; subsequently giving Davin the ability to recalibrate the speedo easily himself down the track.

With the bits and pieces sorted and the car getting close to driveable, Davin sourced a set of wide Simmons FR18s that hide the Hoppers Stoppers brakes. The FRs really fill out the SLR-style flares and the gunmetal centres work well against the blinding Sting Red paintwork.

“I initially thought the classic Marlboro racing colours would be cool, however others in the family didn’t think cigarette advertising was a good idea,” Davin says. “Steve and his team at South Lakes Smash did a really good job on the car with the hours they spent saving the body.”

Simmons and SLR styling. LH Torana and GenIII power. This mixing up of eras and merging of styles can also be found inside the car where Davin combines the immaculate original class of the Torana vinyl with a modern steering wheel, race buckets and Autometer gauges.

All told, Davin should be proud of the results he’s achieved with the LH. It’s gone from a rusted, caved in wreck under a tree to a being a potent, current and ultimately tasty retrotech machine that is sure to continue hunting unsuspecting ricers on our nation’s roads for decades to come. While the greenies might argue the point, we reckon that’s an excellent case of conservationism!

A sneak peek at the shoot we did over the weekend with Nick and his awesome LS1-powered Holden Torana. We even snuck in his slammed Harley Davidson Nightrod for a shot just for fun. The shoot will be coming out in an upcoming issue of Xtreme Holdens magazine.

Issue 221 of Street Commodores just hit newsstands and includes our photo shoot and feature story on Brett Ogden’s Holden VY SS Commodore station wagon. The SS runs a mildly rebuilt LS1 from Winmalee Car Care, but is assisted by a ProCharger that helps the wagon run 10.4sec ETs at the strip. Be sure to pick up issue 221 at your newsagent now.

As always, we’ve got a series of FREE desktop wallpaper images for you to enjoy. Simply CLICK HERE or on the thumbnails below to visit our Flickr page where all the goodies lay in wait for your visit.

Two red Toranas in one issue? Yep, Xtreme Holdens issue 51 contains two red LH/LX Toranas, but they are different animals. Les Chadwick’s 355ci-powered hatch is a total classic Australian street machine, whereas Davin Cochrane’s four-door, pictured here, has gone an altogether different route.

Powered by an LS1 alloy V8 and T56 and wearing a set of Simmons FR rims, Davin’s LH is the epitome of retrotech flavour. You can read all about the radical modern transformation that took place in issue 51, over a generous nine page feature.

As always, we’ve got a series of FREE desktop wallpaper images for you to enjoy and strobist fans will find our lighting information and EXIF data on each image’s caption, too. Simply CLICK HERE or on the thumbnails below to visit our Flickr page where all the goodies lay in wait for your visit.

Issue 47 of Xtreme Holdens is due out soon and contains our photo shoot and feature story on David Chami’s cool self-built LH Holden Torana. Powered by a late-model LS1 alloy V8, this unassuming beast mixes classic Holden appeal with modern Holden power.

In a potentially perilous turn of events, Dave actually bought the car on the internet, sight unseen. Luckily for him, everything turned out OK and the car still wears that same coat of paint today. While the trim is original, everything under the car has been changed and you can read all about it in issue 47 of Xtreme Holdens.

As always, we’ve got a raft of FREE desktop wallpaper images for you to view and download on our Flickr page. Strobist fans and camera buffs will also find our lighting info and EXIF data there, however the exterior shots were primarily shot using natural available light. CLICK HERE or on the thumbnails below to view.